It's official, ESPN will feature our Great Clips Racing #38 car in their television campaign to promote the 2010 Nationwide Series season. We estimate we'll receive more than $6 million in free advertising.
ESPN executives chose Great Clips again because of our strong brand reputation, our performance on the track, and because Kasey Kahne, NASCAR's 2004 Rookie of the Year, will return next year to our Great Clips Racing team and take the wheel in as many as eight races.
As I write this post, we're finalizing our 2010 Nationwide race-day advertising package. This year we received more than $20 million in free bonus coverage. That's a record for us, and with ESPN's continued support we intend to break it next year.
We're also huddling, charting the x's and o's of our advertising schedule on NCAA football telecasts of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS)- The FOX network will broadcast the Orange, Fiesta and Sugar Bowl games, while ABC will air the Rose Bowl and the National Championship Game. In addition to the BCS, we'll have :30-second Great Clips TV spots airing in several other highly rated bowl games.
As part of our BCS bowl game advertising, we'll promote an Ultimate Man-Cave Makeover contest with Kasey Kahne urging everyone to go to greatclips.com to enter and to win. We'll post the contest on our Great Clips Facebook page, too, asking people to submit photos of their "man-cave" and to include a short paragraph as to why they think they deserve to win. We'll pick the top 10-or the worst 10 depending on how you look at it!-and have our Facebook Fans vote for the Ultimate winner. The winner, who we'll announce on February 1, will receive $8,000 worth of gift certificates to create the Ultimate Man-Cave.
We just recorded our 20th consecutive quarter of same-store-sales growth. That's a result of great brand marketing, partners like ESPN, and the customer care and service that our owners, managers and stylists deliver everyday to our valued customers.
We're proud of our accomplishments this year and excited about our plans and opportunities for 2010. I know Kasey agrees, it's a great time to be on our Great Clips team.
